Election Debates

We're full swing into General Election campaigning in the UK - I haven't really mentioned it much thus far because it kinda makes me want to break something - but heyho, can't exactly ignore the fucking thing entirely - whatever the shabby state of politics in this country, I'll be at the ballot box putting my X on the paper when the day comes.

So anyway - there's been all sorts of rumblings about televised debates between the party leaders - this has been going on for about a year, but gathered momentum a couple of months back - party leaders refusing to do them unless certain terms were met, then the goal posts were shifted and the new terms met etc etc.

We have had leadership debates over here in recent elections, but they still feel a relatively new addition to the campaign landscape. I figured since televised debates seem to be a much more expected part of the American election process you guys might find the Brit attempt of interest.

By the time all the conditions had been met, it ended up with a seven way debate between all the leaders of all the parties, rather than between the three main parties.


here's the full debate:

[YOUTUBE]2oLlD2WXsYY[/YOUTUBE]

here's a couple of snippets for those who don;t want to trawl through the whole thing :p

[YOUTUBE]ttaXxjIdrQA[/YOUTUBE]

[youtube]fDumakCRpS0[/youtube]

And for the political animals, here's the post debate Question Time discussion show - a panel of prominent politicians from the main parties and journalists, with questions from the studio audience - a more energetic kind of discussion with some really interesting audience perspectives :

[YOUTUBE]it9fErJtYOw[/YOUTUBE]

This week is manifesto publication week. Given that campaigning has been going on for the last three weeks, the cart would appear to have been put before the horse.

Yesterday, the Labour Party published its manifesto and today it is the turn of the Conservatives and Greens. No doubt the Liberal Democrats and UKIP will follow in short order.

This might amuse...

[ATTACH]51149[/ATTACH]

I was surprised to see this American-ness in British politics. You REALLY don't want to copy much of our stuff. If David Cameron shows up on Graham Elliot or MTV, I'd run.

Oh heck - our politicians have always tried to get down wiv da kids on popular telly shows. It's usually frightful - though some of them do ok.

The election debates could be really good - but they're a bit gimmicky.

Here's another view of the election, this time courtesy of John Oliver:

[YOUTUBE]RnIbhYuTfRw[/YOUTUBE]

Round about now is when I am, yet again, questioning the sanity of my former party in electing Ed Milliband as Leader.

The leadership battle, a few years ago now, came down to a fight between the two Milliband brothers, Ed and David.


First David Milliband: the interview starts at around 2:30

[YOUTUBE]2GrsapuPLNE[/YOUTUBE]



And this is who the party chose - his younger brother, Ed:

[YOUTUBE]voyDsvSNnuA[/YOUTUBE]

HIGNFY is heavily skewed to election coverage at the moment, so I'll post this week's show here:

They cut off the very start of the anecdote at the beginning - she's telling Ian that she bumped into him some years ago while out on a drunken night

[YOUTUBE]6DbrQWxQMpc[/YOUTUBE]

PLease to excuse the giant border - go full screen and it's watchable

Also - as an aside, I love the host forthis week, Stephen Mangan - and I totally have a girl-crush on Camilla Long

Well it's polling day tomorrow.



This is one of those hateful elections, where I am primarily voting against something, rather than for something.

Tomorrow I will go to the ballot box and with something of a heavy heart stick my cross next to the Labour candidate's name. I don't even know her name. Our MP retired this time around so there's a new candidate - I have taken zero interest in the party's machinations and selection processes. I've seen it from the inside once before, for our sister constituency. It's not a pleasant process.

I really just want the current crop of utter bastards to be pushed out of government. I'll take the other, marginally less awful bunch of bastards instead.

DanaC;927719 wrote:

... stick my cross next to the Labour candidate's name. I don't even know her name. ...

Harriet Jones

Hehehehehe. Yes.

Just got an email from Nick Clegg, which is sweet of him considering he must be busy today. Not that my LibDem vote really counts in Otley; by all accounts the incumbent is a shoo-in.

I did my duty this morning anyway. It's a shame when only people making their protest votes are motivated and give the extreme parties something to boast about. As they did in Aylesbury in the Council elections (a UKIP councillor? what's he going to do, get Quarrendon out of Europe?!) and as someone's parents are doing in this General Election. Aylesbury won't shift from true-blue because of their two votes, but who wants to put a smile on racists' faces?

ETA the above doesn't apply to Dana's vote, obviously.
I am voting differently, but for the same reason. I'm not pro Lib Dem, but I'm not anti. They meet my political ideals better than the current coalition, and why split the vote in this area by ticking Labour?

It's unfortunate that General Elections are now such negative experiences when so often we find ourselves voting for the marginally less worse party or casting our vote tactically in order to keep a candidate out rather than voting another one in.
It beggars belief that we still cling to the first past the post system where an MP can be in the position of having more people voting against him/her than voted for him/her.
That peculiarity manifested itself in the governments of both Mrs Thatcher and Mr Blair whereby they were elected on the basis of achieving 42% or thereabouts of the popular vote.
Governments elected by proportional representation are often said to be weak, but at least have the merit of representing the distribution of votes cast.

Anyway, whoever takes up residence at No 10 is going to need a large dose of good luck and the agility to dodge the copious quantities of ordure heading his way.

<snip>Governments elected by proportional representation are often said to be weak,
but at least have the merit of representing the distribution of votes cast.

Anyway, whoever takes up residence at No 10 is going to need a large dose of good luck
and the agility to dodge the copious quantities of ordure heading his way.

As much as I despise the GOP, I end up arguing that a 2-party system is still
better for the U.S than 3rd-party candidates and/or coalition governments .

Of course, the GOP has been reversing the old axiom to
"the devil we don't know might be better than..."
And too, we don't (yet) have a sovereign who could sort out all the tangles.

Sending the Brits a wish for the best of luck...

Your cartoon illustrates something very interesting I heard from what I think was an American reporter on the ground in the UK discussing the relative quiet yesterday. If I remember correctly, yesterday, the day before the election, no campaigning is allowed. That's shocking enough, but the real kicker is personified by the expressions of exhaustion on the faces of your politicians. The story revealed that the election campaign was *six weeks long* and that "...most people here will tell you that is interminably long".

Oh, yeah. Riiiiiiight. Just this week we had that announcements from at least four new candidates for President for an election that won't be held until some eighteen months hence, November 2016. Six weeks is a YouTube video by comparison.

DanaC;927719 wrote:

I really just want the current crop of utter bastards to be pushed out of government. I'll take the other, marginally less awful bunch of bastards instead.

I thought this was the election where Brits decide if the UK was to still be a world power. Or to withdrawl from the EU and substancially reduce its military. Is that not the real question on this ballot?

BigV;927771 wrote:

Your cartoon illustrates something very interesting I heard from what I think was an American reporter on the ground in the UK discussing the relative quiet yesterday. If I remember correctly, yesterday, the day before the election, no campaigning is allowed. That's shocking enough, but the real kicker is personified by the expressions of exhaustion on the faces of your politicians. The story revealed that the election campaign was *six weeks long* and that "...most people here will tell you that is interminably long".

Oh, yeah. Riiiiiiight. Just this week we had that announcements from at least four new candidates for President for an election that won't be held until some eighteen months hence, November 2016. Six weeks is a YouTube video by comparison.

It's a difficult one to judge from this distance, so please correct me if I'm wrong, but I suspect that campaigning in the US proceeds at a relatively civilised rate until fairly near the election.
Over here campaigning has proceeded at breakneck speed for the last six weeks sorely testing the party leaders and others, not to mention the patience of the long suffering electorate.
That's DanaC, Sundae, your humble correspondent and about 45 million other knackered souls.

Campaigning continues up to the last minute but not on polling day. By coincidence there was a report on the radio about half an hour ago concerning this.
Apart from the requirements of the Representation of the People Act, broadcasters impose upon themselves guidelines that restrict reporting on polling day between 0600 and 2200, ie start and finish of voting hours.
They confine themselves to factual reports and nothing that could be construed as campaigning. For instance, all the main party leaders and spouses have been shown turning up to vote and that's about it.
I think that the Nation views this absence of coverage as a welcome respite from the whole wretched affair. Of course, at the stroke of 2200 the shackles fall away and normal service is resumed by the broadcasters.

Should you be of a particularly masochistic outlook, you might wish to go to the BBC website at 2200BST/1400PST and listen to Radio 4. Eight hours of non-stop coverage of the results await you.
Under normal circumstances I take a tablet at about 2030 in order to relax me in preparation for sleep.
I am seriously contemplating taking two.*


ETA As an example of straightforward factual reporting, this page is as good as any:

Election 2015: Millions vote in UK general election




* It's OK. That's well within the dosage outlines.

It's in the news, on the net, on the phone, EVERY FUCKING DAY. Day in, day out, it never stops. Koch Brothers alone are spending near a Billion dollars, and that buys a lot of annoying. :smack:

[QUOTE=Carruthers;927811]Should you be of a particularly masochistic outlook, you might wish to go to the BBC website at 2200BST/1400PST and listen to Radio 4. Eight hours of non-stop coverage of the results await you.[\QUOTE]
Actually the one thing I will miss is seeing the results come in (although we all know Sunderland will win again!) I forgot about Radio 4. I have a plan now - to sleep through what I really want to hear after waiting for it all day. a bit like Round the Horne really...

I'll probably sign off when a landmark decision comes in, like when Michael Portillo lost his seat in 1997, on a night which was starting to look like we'd be stuck with Tories for another term. They were trounced in the end, but it was reasonable to go to bed after some good news. And also to stop one of our friends drinking us completely dry...

Sundae;927818 wrote:

I'll probably sign off when a landmark decision comes in, like when Michael Portillo lost his seat in 1997, on a night which was starting to look like we'd be stuck with Tories for another term. They were trounced in the end, but it was reasonable to go to bed after some good news.

I always reserved a substantial repertoire of particularly unpleasant adjectives to hurl at the TV every time Portillo appeared during his political days.
In fairness, I have to say that in his travel programmes (Great Railway Journeys etc), he appears to be a decent and impeccably mannered chap.
It may be that he has changed or quite possibly, as a former politician, he's just a damned good actor.

Charlie Brooker's Election Wipe:

[YOUTUBE]THy2031TA0o[/YOUTUBE]

Carruthers wrote:

It's a difficult one to judge from this distance, so please correct me if I'm wrong, but I suspect that campaigning in the US proceeds at a relatively civilised rate until fairly near the election.

It's not so much the rate as the pretense. My impression (also difficult to judge from the other side of this distance) is that while American politicians attempt to exude righteous outrage and holier-than-thou stances on everything, UK politicians are allowed/encouraged to get very directly nasty with one another. We have talking heads and pundits who can get bitchy, but for the most part it's a very choreographed dance on both sides.

We're a six-hour opera grinding through the motions, while you are a 30-second MMA fight where everyone's going to bleed.

Looks like my vote was needed after all.
Leeds North West was one of the few seats the LibDems held onto.

Aylesbury was carried by the Conservatives as expected, but UKIP gained. Shame it looks like they're only going to have one seat in Parliament country-wide and be torn apart by the loss of the only know UKIP face, Farage. Hahaha.

But the Labour losses in Scotland - and the SNP gains - are really going to be significant.
Another referendum, Nicola? After the one which was supposed to settle the question once and for all?

Clod - I hadn't seen it that way myself. I was always amazed by the adverts I saw from American campaigns which focused on the voting history of candidates. Here I always thought it was more about the record of the party. Like you (and Carruthers) say, it's like comparing apples and oranges when you live in a different country. We probably only get to see the extremes.

Wow, the Scottish Nationalists really did it to Labour. 20 year old Mhairi Black becomes the "youngest lawmaker since 1667."

Clodfobble;927898 wrote:

It's not so much the rate as the pretense. My impression (also difficult to judge from the other side of this distance) is that while American politicians attempt to exude righteous outrage and holier-than-thou stances on everything, UK politicians are allowed/encouraged to get very directly nasty with one another. We have talking heads and pundits who can get bitchy, but for the most part it's a very choreographed dance on both sides.

We're a six-hour opera grinding through the motions, while you are a 30-second MMA fight where everyone's going to bleed.

Election campaigning can become pretty unpleasant and personal in the UK.
A couple of weeks ago Michael Fallon, Conservative Defence Minister in the outgoing coalition government, accused Ed Miliband of &#8216;knifing his brother David in the back&#8217;.
David M was a capable, and well regarded, Foreign Secretary in Tony Blair&#8217;s government and both brothers offered themselves as candidates for leadership of the Labour Party in 2010.
There might have been a kernel of truth in the remark but there was a general feeling that Mr Fallon had gone too far and nothing more was heard from him after that.

It was quite breathtaking to hear Nick Clegg and David Cameron flinging copious quantities of mud at one another in the campaigning when both men had worked closely in the coalition government for five years.
I pondered over the likelihood of a similar result to last time and the two of them having to work with one another again. I think it&#8217;s called &#8216;creative tension&#8217;.

Anyway, barring unforeseen circumstances, it&#8217;s all over for another five years. Pausing only to consult my copy of Old Carruthers&#8217; Almanack, I see that the new government will either be an outstanding success or fall flat on its face.
Remember you heard it here first.

By the way. This notice appeared outside a church in Edinburgh that was being used as a polling station.
It isn't clear which the anxious voter should do first.

One of our tv stations today was reviewing your (Brits) election,
and said that the campaign was particularly vicious in the press
in that Ed Miliband was photographed while eating (awkwardly).

If you're a politician never, never have your pic taken while eating. :headshake

Lamplighter;927930 wrote:

One of our tv stations today was reviewing your (Brits) election,
and said that the campaign was particularly vicious in the press
in that Ed Miliband was photographed while eating (awkwardly).

If you're a politician never, never have your pic taken while eating. :headshake

I'm surprised that Ed Miliband's Press & PR people weren't on the ball enough to warn him of the perils of eating in front of cameras, especially after his brother was ambushed...




David M always seemed to be the sharper of the two, despite his ineptitude with a banana, and I think that today's result might have been different had the Labour party chosen him instead of Ed.

The wrong brother won.

I'm sure he's a lovely man. I know people who know him and they say he's lovely. I'm sure he's a clever bloke as well. He has some good ideas and some good analysis of some important issues.

He has no leadership qualities. None. No charisma, no gravitas, nothing to inspire confidence.



His selection was the result of internecine warfare within the party. The Labour Party is divided more or less down the middle between the modernisers and the traditionalists: Old Labour and New Labour (a continuation and evolution of the 1980s divisions over the militant tendency).

Half the party membership were voting according to who they thought would be the better leader - the other half, at a minimum, was voting according to their factional loyalties.

In some ways that's healthy - people having agency over the fundamental shape of the party. In other ways it's toxic. It's become tribal, and bitter. At times the two sides hate each other far more than they hate their political opposition. And they will each happily cripple their party in order to stop the other side gaining control.

Lamplighter;927930 wrote:

If you're a politician never, never have your pic taken while eating. :headshake

Eating comes only second to kissing babies over here. Many of our career politicians come from the high echalons of society. They went to the same schools, the same Universities. There are only so many things you can do on camera to prove yourself a man of the people. Eating seems to be the only one legal for the front page of the newspapers.
And yes, they get it wrong on a regular basis, because those at the top really do not live in the same world as people like me. The irony being, I could "pass" better at one of their dinners, as long as I didn't talk.

You just know Cameron never succumbed to a Greggs Steak Bake because he had enough money in coppers and his hands were cold and it would fill him up all day. He may eat real pasties with Samantha in Cornwall, but not chips on the front in Blackpool. And (the British version of) BBQ - no David, no. One does not eat a hotdog with a knife and fork.

The rest are the same. Except real man of the people Nigel Farage (because no-one is impressed by the public school he went to, and he went to work in the City, as a commodities broker, not to Uni). So he gets away with holding photo ops in pubs and sipping from the top of pints while defending his party's racist attitudes by saying they have one full black and one half-black candidate. Because everyone talks like that.

Female politicians don't need to eat in public, because people can see what they've done physically if they have children.
Women who work in politics and have no children are obviously so unnatural anyway, you wouldn't want to see them eat. Because it would probably be live rodents...

Scotland at one time was a Labour bastion and the SNP were always minor players in the game of things, but over the years the labour party in Scotland took the electorate for granted year after year they expected blind loyalty and gave very little in return.

Even when the Scottish Parliament was set up we had three Labour First Ministers along with the Lib Dems in coalition but the lot of the average Scot changed very little, the Scots had had enough and a minority SNP government was voted in, things slowly changed, then an SNP government with a majority was voted in and things got a bit better, ( this was never meant to happen as the way the parliament was set up should have excluded the SNP from getting a majority )

When the Independence referendum come about many Labour supporters were insulted that their party officials took to the same stage as the Tories and were hand in glove with what was always perceived as the enemy.
Add to this that many labour supporters were not as unionist as the party hierarchy thought they were and many actually voted yes, so I was not surprised that Labour got wiped out in Scotland, yes many votes will be a protest vote but the swell for self determination has not gone away the battle last year for independence may have been lost but the war is not over, the genie is out of the bottle in Scotland and it's not for going back in.

The Unionists promised change and more powers for Scotland we got a "vow "which were as usual empty words and as soon as the result was known the back tracking started, we were told by the UK establishment that we were full partners with an equal voice in the Union, well the election rhetoric by the two major parties put paid to that, the SNP were portrayed as the Antichrist incarnate. Only this morning I heard an ex Tory minister on the radio complaining about pandering to the bloody Scots.

Sundae asked about another referendum I don't think its on the cards at this time however if the SNP win in the Scottish Parliament in 2016 and wipe out Labour then all bets are off and then I think they'll push for it .
The Tories think that the SNP in Westminster are an irrelevance and if they have that attitude it will be a big mistake David Cameron and the Tories are in for a bumpy ride

Alba gu Brath

If I lived in Scotland I'd have voted SNP, I admit.

I might have done. But - then again, maybe not. I think knowing that an SNP sweep through would basically inflict five years of Tory government on everybody might have swayed me back to Labour.




I hate them so much. I hate them at a deep and visceral level.

DanaC;927957 wrote:

snip--

In some ways that's healthy - people having agency over the fundamental shape of the party. In other ways it's toxic. It's become tribal, and bitter. At times the two sides hate each other far more than they hate their political opposition. And they will each happily cripple their party in order to stop the other side gaining control.

This sounds much like the current state of the GOP (the Grand Old Party, the Republican Party). There's a great deal of infighting to appeal to the voters, and the clash between the TEA (Taxed Enough Already) party and other various sub-species of conservatives provides an unending source of the conflict you describe. There's even an epithet for those who are deemed unworthy or false Republicans, RINO (Republican In Name Only). It is more exhausting than entertaining.